The causes of antibiotic resistance are complex and include human behaviour at many levels of society; the consequences affect everybody in the world. Similarities with climate change are evident. Many efforts have been made to describe the many different facets of antibiotic resistance and the interventions needed to meet the challenge. However, coordinated action is largely absent, especially at the political level, both nationally and internationally. Antibiotics paved the way for unprecedented medical and societal developments, and are today indispensible in all health systems. Achievements in modern medicine, such as major surgery, organ transplantation, treatment of preterm babies, and cancer chemotherapy, which we today take for granted, would not be possible without access to effective treatment for bacterial infections. Within just a few years, we might be faced with dire setbacks, medically, socially, and economically, unless real and unprecedented global coordinated actions are immediately taken. Here, we describe the global situation of antibiotic resistance, its major causes and consequences, and identify key areas in which action is urgently needed.

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Antibiotic resistance—the need for global solutions

This book draws on a wide range of scientific research on the contribution that insects make to ecosystems, diets, food security and livelihoods in both developed and developing countries.

/pdf/edible-insects-future-prospects-for-food-and-feed-security-l4wwbjrpgl.pdf

Edible insects: future prospects for food and feed security

Plasmids and the spread of resistance

In 2008, a previously unknown Escherichia coli clonal group, sequence type 131 (ST131), was identified on three continents. Today, ST131 is the predominant E. coli lineage among extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC) isolates worldwide. Retrospective studies have suggested that it may originally have risen to prominence as early as 2003. Unlike other classical group B2 ExPEC isolates, ST131 isolates are commonly reported to produce extended-spectrum β-lactamases, such as CTX-M-15, and almost all are resistant to fluoroquinolones. Moreover, ST131 E. coli isolates are considered to be truly pathogenic, due to the spectrum of infections they cause in both community and hospital settings and the large number of virulence-associated genes they contain. ST131 isolates therefore seem to contradict the widely held view that high levels of antimicrobial resistance are necessarily associated with a fitness cost leading to a decrease in pathogenesis. Six years after the first description of E. coli ST131, this review outlines the principal traits of ST131 clonal group isolates, based on the growing body of published data, and highlights what is currently known and what we need to find out to provide public health authorities with better information to help combat ST131.

Escherichia coli ST131, an Intriguing Clonal Group

https://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S1198-743X(14)64559-6/pdf

Extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing and AmpC-producing Escherichia coli from livestock and companion animals, and their putative impact on public health: a global perspective

https://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S1198-743X(14)61985-6/pdf

J. Scharinga

Papers

Dutch patients, retail chicken meat and poultry share the same ESBL genes, plasmids and strains.